Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

The man snorted. ‘I just want to know why she did it. You can hardly answer that, can you?’

‘No, maybe not, but I think it’s likely she was ill. Mental illness can cause people unbearable pain and they can see no way to relieve their suffering other than suicide. When that’s the case, there’s no one to blame; there’s nothing that you or anyone else could have done. You should keep that firmly in mind.’

The man gave Freyr a sceptical look. ‘Halla wasn’t in any pain. I would have known.’

‘Maybe her faith eased her discomfort, or else she concealed it out of consideration for you.’

The man shook his head, but no longer seemed quite so convinced. ‘I’ve been thinking about it almost constantly since it happened, trying to remember something in her behaviour that I should have noticed. Something that could have helped me prevent her from doing what she did. But I can’t recall anything.’

Freyr decided not to reel off all the principal manifestations of suicidal tendencies. One of the clearest warning signs was a similar earlier attempt. But this was certainly not the case here. Right now it would be unhealthy for the man to become filled with regret; if Freyr were to name some of the signs, it could cause the widower even more distress if it turned out that any of them applied to Halla’s behaviour. Instead Freyr directed the conversation to how Bjarni might best arrange things to help him come to terms with the loss of his wife. The man seemed to listen and take note, and even asked a question or two, which was a good sign. Freyr was heartened to hear that the couple’s daughter, Petra, still lived in town, although the sons had long since left for the south. So the old man wasn’t left entirely alone, and Freyr urged him to have his daughter come and visit as often as possible, to go to her place for supper and accept all the companionship that she and the family had to offer. When asked, Bjarni said that he wasn’t considering following the same path as his wife, which was also a good sign, although his saying it didn’t mean they could assume it was true. Freyr was feeling reasonably satisfied with the way things were going when he realized that he had to get home. Bjarni also looked a bit tired and seemed to have stopped taking in what he was being told.

‘I’m going to look in on you tomorrow, if you don’t mind; and you can call me any time.’ Freyr handed him a business card and watched the man squint at the small lettering. Again Freyr was reassured by the widower’s reaction, since the man showed a sign of interest.

After saying goodbye, Freyr walked to his car. As he reached for the keys in his jacket pocket, he noticed a steeple that he hadn’t seen on his way through the village. Surprised, he returned to the house. ‘One final question: didn’t Halla attend church here in Flateyri?’ he said when the man reappeared in the doorway.

‘Yes.’ Clearly he understood precisely what Freyr was asking. ‘She didn’t belong to the parish in Súðavík, or attend mass or do anything else at that church.’ His voice hardened as he added: ‘She just chose to die there, but I don’t understand why she did it or why she chose that as the location.’ He fell silent, letting his eyes wander past Freyr to the town behind him. ‘Like many of us, her interest in the past grew over the years. She had recently taken to visiting old friends quite often, and she developed an increasing fascination with genealogy.’ He noticed that Freyr found this interesting and clearly wanted to make sure his words weren’t misunderstood, or that anything more could be read into them than he originally intended. ‘But I’ve felt the same, and I didn’t take my own life. It was all perfectly normal.’

On his way to Ísafjörður, Freyr couldn’t help but wonder why the woman had gone to another community’s church to kill herself. She’d doubtless wanted to protect her friends and relatives from finding her dead, but she could have chosen the church in Suðureyri, Þingeyri, or Ísafjörður, all of which were much closer. There must have been a reason for her choice, but Freyr found it impossible to guess it. He knew that it mattered; he just couldn’t figure out why.

The temperature had dropped, yet Katrín’s back was clammy with sweat. The cotton T-shirt felt as if it were glued to her skin and it clung uncomfortably each time she moved. The chill that stung her bare cheeks even though she was burning hot everywhere else was particularly unpleasant. She could endure heat or cold but they didn’t go together at all; it was like eating salted sugar. She stretched, planted her hands on her hips and looked at what she’d accomplished in the last hour or so. When she’d been within a hair’s breadth of getting a thundering headache, she’d given up on the stinking paint smell inside and gone out for fresh air. There she took up where they’d left off in their repairs to the porch the day before. Their progress was nothing to be proud of; so far it had been extremely limited and, if anything, it looked like they had made matters worse. Boards lay strewn about and the irregular edges of the part of the porch that Garðar had decided didn’t need fixing had become even more irregular. In one place Katrín had broken a long plank that reached some way into the undamaged part of the porch. Garðar would be over the moon about that when he turned up again. Líf, on the other hand, would see the funny side. She’d smiled many times during their work today, not least at her own clumsiness. This wasn’t the only example of repairs that had gone haywire. Everywhere inside were half-completed tasks; improvements that they’d begun but quickly given up on or put on hold. No one brought up the topic of when they were planning to complete these difficult projects; Líf had no interest in anything other than what she was doing at any given moment and Katrín and Garðar were both careful not to say a word about their working methods. This wasn’t the first time that they had resorted to denial to try to avoid their problems. Of course they knew that this didn’t work, that it just made things worse; it would probably all come to a chaotic head just before they left and then they’d rush around madly trying to quick-fix everything.

The whole situation just made Katrín want to sigh deeply but she restrained herself, not wanting to break the profound silence to which she was becoming accustomed, and which seemed to be gaining in intensity. Instead she let her hands drop and exhaled silently. Things would sort themselves out one way or the other. The porch spread out beneath her feet, gaping at the world as if it were terribly surprised at all this commotion after being allowed to rot in peace and quiet for decades. Through the large gap she could see the dark soil beneath. Apart from the animal bones that they’d found there, this murky place appeared to be as devoid of vegetation and about as fertile as the moon. Katrín found herself disgusted by the musty odour that arose from beneath the porch, although it wasn’t particularly pungent or even that unpleasant. Perhaps it was the discovery of the bones that still bothered her. In truth she had trouble understanding why the thought of them made her tremble; she wasn’t a vegetarian, so there was no reason why the bones should have awakened any particular emotions in her. Nonetheless she avoided looking under the untouched planks. Perhaps she was afraid of uncovering human bones; the earthly remains of the woman and the boy for whom the crosses had been erected.

‘Ugh.’ Garðar appeared in the doorway, a hideous sight. His face and clothing were covered with splotches of white paint. The dark stubble on his chin no longer looked like a shadow, but instead resembled patchy, poorly groomed feathers. He looked either hung-over or ill and in fact when Katrín squinted, he almost seemed half dead. His bloodshot eyes did nothing to diminish this effect. ‘I was this far from suffocating.’ Garðar showed her a tiny space between his thumb and index finger. ‘I’d forgotten how awful paint thinner is.’ The last time they’d needed to do some decorating at home they’d hired a painter, since money had not been an issue and it had seemed pointless to get their own hands dirty. If someone had suggested that within a few months they’d be on the verge of bankruptcy, they would have smiled sympathetically and reminded that individual to take his medication. ‘I don’t know how long Líf will last. She’s finishing up the door and window frames in the attic.’ Garðar leaned lazily in the doorway. ‘Of course I’ve rarely seen such a poor paint job; in the summer sun it’ll look ridiculous.’ He stepped outside. ‘What happened here?’ Garðar had spotted the damage to the porch. He didn’t sound particularly annoyed.